Sylvia Boorstein, founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, has a mantra.  It is… “May I greet each moment fully.  May I greet each moment as a friend.”  There is a world of meaning in that mantra. Can you feel it?

First, this mantra implies that we alone are in charge of how we choose to greet life including all the people and events in it. We can own our own perception and decision to either greet life fully or stand back as a non-participant in fear.

We can courageously ask what is this moment here to teach me about who I am? You won’t greet each moment fully, unless you are willing to know the answer. In addition, you won’t be willing to know until you realize the knowledge you receive erases the fear and brings enormous empowerment with it.

Most of us spend our lifetime, avoiding the wealth of knowledge right in front of us. Perhaps we think it’s in a book, someone wiser should tell us, or that knowing the truth will be painful. Honestly, sometimes it is painful to acknowledge the ways in which we have hurt ourselves or others. However, which is more painful, having the chance to correct that or to continue doing it?

I remember standing on the balcony of my college just weeping after a child development class when I realized how much I had not given my children in the way of emotional support. 

That realization grieved my spirit and made me very sad, however, it also allowed me to have compassion for myself because I had never been given the tools to provide that for them. Asking what is this moment here to teach me about and who I am, moved me to committing to always being there differently for them from the moment of that realization to now. 

It’s not as if we see anything less than perfect about ourselves, that we can’t fix it, or we are bad. 

Actually, seeing what is less than perfect is our assignment while we’re here. It’s the secret to our empowerment. It all comes up when you meet each moment fully and as a friend.

There is a wealth of information about you in every moment you embrace fully. If you greet each moment as a friend, you get the gift each moment brings.

I was a total jerk to my Mom and Dad when they died. Mom was an alcoholic and I had little or no compassion for her. We were estranged — with a high wall of memories looming between us. On it were pictures of me in tears at age 11 driving her to the hospital repeatedly after suicide attempts; of my brother and I chasing her rapist all over town, of late night excursions to her favorite bars and threats from me at age nine to bartenders who served her too much and couldn’t care less if she drove home and made her own children or some other children motherless. 

I was in my twenties when she died and I was filled with too much pain to make room for compassion or understanding. She had four brothers and a father who were all alcoholics. She had no support and no friends who would have thought to get her to a meeting right near by. 

And, I was in my indignant twenties and filled up with so much judgment and not knowing then  — what I know now.

Asking myself what is this moment here to teach me about who I am now, allows me to see my mother as a master teacher in my life and I love her dearly.  

We have made peace. 

She taught me what it looks like when you don’t love yourself. I wouldn’t be who I am without that invaluable lesson. 

My father, who was a manipulator and liar, taught me about what the wrong use of will and power looks like. Because of his abandonment, I learned not to abandon myself. I am forever grateful to him as well.  

Our last moment together was to remind him to tell my sister how much he loved her before he left the planet. He did that for the first time in twenty years. Wherever they are, they are at peace and they get it and I have met our moments together fully and each moment was indeed a friend which has taught me so much about myself. I look forward to meeting both of them again in moments filled with compassion and understanding.

Some moments like mine will bring you to your knees and others will break your heart open with joy. Try not to close down, but rather, greet each moment fully as a friend and know that it is waiting with a great gift for you. Don’t miss it.